The Leap

My brother loves basketball. His current favorite player is Kobe Bryant. He loves the story about how somewhere in the mid-2000's, Kobe decided to take "the leap". This leap was a physical one. It meant that the player add several pounds of muscle to his slight shooting guard frame, and work on post moves. He would be more than just a guy who took shots on the outside perimeter. He would have more physical power to work closer to the basket, and defend bigger players. (I'm trying my best to make it simple for non-ball-loving friends!)

So yeah. "The leap" my brother likes to say, quotes stressed by his fingers.

It makes me think about my own life.

In all honesty, I'm really lucky. I've managed to survive and thrive this long without making major adjustments to my life, and the changes I made, I could go back from easily. I learned to live alone, in a strange land with strange language barriers, but I got to go home after. I may have failed my subjects and lost a scholarship, but I never had to stop studying.

Lately, I've found that something...crashed in my life. Maybe it was from the car accident I recently survived. Maybe it was from watching people close to me get hurt, again and again, and see them get back up. Maybe it's because, as Pablo Neruda put it, "I am tired of being a man," and the sameness of this city takes away my sharpness.

I have chosen to not sit around. I want to take "the leap". My life has a lot of "high time" markers.

That means:
- I get a decent paying job and amass some meaningful wealth in a year.
- lose close to 100 more pounds of weight within the next few months
- finish my graduate studies
- move out of the family house and into something different
- get really, really good at being alone (more on this another day)

I don't know where this will take me. I only know it will change me. And maybe that's reason enough.